Casting Down Imaginations (27 page)

“Good night Mr. Stephens,” he called to Daddy.

Daddy nodded his way, but didn’t say anything.

“Goodnight Mrs. Stephens,” Terrance said, and made his way up
the stairs and into the guest bedroom.

“You ready to go to bed, too?” Mama asked me.

I looked over at Daddy, who was watching me with hurt in his
eyes. I was sure he noticed that I hadn’t spoken a word to him. I wanted to,
but I just wasn’t ready.

I shook my head. “Can we talk?” I asked her.

She looked surprised. “Really?”

I nodded. “Yeah. I mean, if you and Daddy aren’t about to go
to bed.”

Her eyes darted at Daddy. He didn’t say anything.

“Yeah, we can talk,” she told me. “Why don’t you get changed
and meet me in my room.”

“Well… I kinda wanted us to talk privately.”

“That’s okay,” she told me, watching Daddy out of her
peripheral. “We won’t be interrupted.”

Daddy got up and went to the hallway closet and pulled out a
blanket and a pillow. Mama and I watched as he spread them out and then
stretched out across the couch to go to sleep.

“That’s where he’s been sleeping for the past few weeks,”
Mama said.

Daddy settled on the couch as if he didn’t hear her, but I
knew that he had. It was written all over his face. I didn’t know exactly what
was going on, but I knew he hadn’t meant for it to get this bad. He laid there
in a pitiful stupor, and as much as I loved him, I wasn’t sure if I pitied him.

**********

I knocked on Mama’s bedroom door after taking a shower and
changing into my night clothes.

“Come on in, baby,” she said through the door.

I walked in slowly, realizing that it had been years since
I’d set foot in the room. It was different than I had remembered. The headboard
and matching dresser were new, and the back wall was painted a pale shade of
green. It made the room appear bigger, which I liked.

“Come, sit,” she said to me, patting the bed.

I walked over and sat down on the edge of the bed.

“It’s good to have you home again.”

I smiled at her. “It feels good to be home. Despite the
circumstances.”

“So, what’s up?”

I shrugged, still looking around the room. There was a lot I
wanted to say, and a lot I wanted to ask. I just didn’t know where to begin.

“What happened, Mama?” I asked.

She looked like she didn’t want to answer me, but she did.
“Well, as you learned the last time you were home, Karen, your Daddy has a
gambling problem.”

“A gambling problem? Mama, this looks like more than just a
gambling problem.”

She leaned her head back against the headboard, obviously
very stressed.

“We don’t have any money, Karen,” she told me. “We’re flat
broke.”

“But I don’t get it. You both have jobs. Good jobs. How can
you both be broke?”

She laughed. “It’s funny how things work out like that, huh?”

How could she joke at a time like this?

“No, Mama. It’s not funny at all.”

Her countenance fell. “No, it’s not.”

“Mama, what’s going on?”

She shook her head slowly, looking down at her nails. “He’s
sick,” she told me. “Your Daddy… He’s a sick man, Karen. He’s sick, and he has
been for years. And I’m trying my hardest to be strong and stand by him, but I
can only do so much.”

Her last words panged me. “Mama, you’re thinking about
getting a divorce?”

She exhaled loudly. “I’m tempted to, Karen. I really am. And
I know the Lord does not like divorce. But I honestly feel like I can’t do this
anymore.”

She started to cry. Feeling bad for her, I crawled across the
bed and sat next to her. I wanted to put her head on my shoulder, but instead
held her hand. She gripped it tight as she tried to regain her composure.

“Twenty-one years,” she told me. “That’s how long I been
married to that man. Twenty-one years.”

“That’s a long time,” I reminded her gently. “You sure you
ready to throw that all away?”

“Sometimes I wake up in the morning and I want to. But then I
think about everything else, and I think that I shouldn’t. You’re grown now and
out of the house, but I still got a baby boy at home and he needs his daddy.
But then I ask myself, you know, is this really fair to him? Yeah, his daddy is
in the house, but what kind of example is he setting for him? Karen, I know he
hears us argue. I know he hears the fights. He’s getting older now, and we
can’t hide the fact that we aren’t happy from him anymore. The boy is smart,
you know that.”

I agreed with her. “Yes, Mama. Kevin is smart.”

“We haven’t been happy in years,” she confessed to me. “We
used to be happy… But that was a long time ago.”

“Mama, what happened?”

“I been stupid, Karen. I been an old, stupid fool.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Don’t be like me, baby. Don’t you marry a man and lose
yourself in the process. No matter how good he is to you, never forget who you
really are. Okay?”

“What are you—”

“Promise me that, Karen.”

I nodded, even though I was unsure. “Yes, Mama. I promise.”

“Good.”

We sat in silence for a few minutes before she continued.

“I was so happy when we got married,” she told me. “I was
young, just a few years out of high school. Everybody told us we were crazy,
too young to be getting married. But I felt like everything would be okay
because I really loved him. Plus he was good to me and had a promising career
ahead of him. And your Daddy promised me that he would always take care of me.”

I scooted closer as she continued to talk. The more she
talked the more she cried, and the more I wanted to cry with her.

“But then he changed,” she continued. “About fifteen years
into it he changed. He all of a sudden became obsessed with money. We were
always okay, you know? We didn’t always have what we wanted, but we did have
what we needed. Until now, that is. I was so proud of your Daddy, Karen. He
worked so hard to get this house. We had so much debt. We had school loans and
maxed out credit cards. We both worked so hard to get all that paid off, and
then we saved all our money to get this house.”

“I remember that,” I told her.

“Yeah. But then about five years ago he started gambling. Now
I never agreed with him, because I don’t believe in gambling. I don’t believe
that God honors money that comes that way. But he insisted that it was just
harmless fun, and being the naïve little wife that I was at the time, I
believed him. I was so stupid, Karen. I should have taken over the family
finances right then, but I didn’t have a clue that things were gonna end up this
way.”

“Mama, tell me what happened.”

She sighed heavily, almost too tired to continue her story.

“He started gambling more, started betting more. He got
addicted to it. And I knew this, but I still didn’t take over the family
finances. This situation that we’re in right now is all my fault.”

“Did you try to talk to him?”

“I did. I did over and over again, but he wouldn’t listen. He
would say I was sassing him, ‘cause he was used to me doing whatever he told me
to. And I used to, but that was when he never told me anything wrong, so there
was no reason for me not to listen to him. He started gambling behind my back,
and he started to owe so many people. He went and took out an equity loan on
this house, and I didn’t even know about it until the bank started calling. We
owe so much money, but your Daddy has a problem. I thought things were going
better, but then he would never have money. It got to the point that he kept
asking me for money for things like gas and dinner, which I knew he should have
had. I kept bugging him about it, and he finally confessed that his paycheck
would be gone before he even got it, paying bookies back.”

“Oh no. Mama, I’m so sorry.”

“Then I didn’t even know until it was too late that he’d
gambled all of your school money away. It turns out the money was gone before
you even graduated from high school. He just got lucky your first semester and
won on a bet to pay for your school.”

It was suddenly starting to all make sense. The fights that
they constantly had couldn’t have just been about me. They were about money,
too. I just never knew.

“Is that why you were so mad at him?” I asked.

“When?”

“When I got pregnant?”

She looked confused. “What are you talking about?”

“The fights, Mama. When I got pregnant you and Daddy fought
like crazy all the time.”

“That wasn’t because of you, honey. Well, in a way it was,
but it was indirectly. I was mad at your Daddy for gambling so much. I felt that
he was being two-faced, living a double-life, and I didn’t like it. It was
sickening to me how he would go to church on Sunday morning and front like he
was such a good, loyal, God-fearing man, and all the while he was scheming.
Then you got pregnant, and it was just too much for me.”

“But you were mean to me,” I reminded her. “You were so cold.
You wouldn’t even support me when I started doing things at the church. You
said I wasn’t good enough.”

Remorse poured out of her face. “Karen… That day you came in
here and asked me to take you to the doctor, my whole world was falling apart.
I was losing faith in my husband and in God. And then you, my baby, came in
here and told me you were pregnant. I just flipped out, I didn’t know what to
do.”

I started to cry. “You called me a whore,” I told her. “I was
in so much pain, Mama. Do you know what it was like for me during that time in
my life, Mama?”

“Karen—”

“No, Mama!” I cut her off. I didn’t want her to say anything.
I didn’t want to hear any of her reasoning. Nothing she could possibly say
could make up for the way she treated her only daughter. “You should have been
there for me,” I told her. “I lost everything. My boyfriend, all of my friends.
I lost my baby, Mama. And you just acted like you didn’t even care.”

She reached over and kissed me. “I didn’t mean it, baby,” she
told me. “Honestly, I really didn’t. I knew you were in love with Terrance. And
at the time he seemed like a really good kid. But it was just too much for me.
You were my baby, and you came in here telling me you were about to have a
baby. Your Daddy was always gone, out in the streets, trying to hustle when he
didn’t have to. And I blamed him for it. I blamed him for your mistakes.”

“But you could have talked to me,” I said. “I was scared,
Mama. And I needed you.”

“I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you when you needed me,” she
apologized. Guilt was all over her face. “You were so young, baby. And I know
you must have been so scared.”

“Why did you treat me like that, Mama?”

“I’m sorry baby,” she apologized and hugged me. “I know I
hurt you real bad. And you may not understand everything I’m going through
right now, but one day you will. I’m not asking you to forgive me right now,
because I know that’s a lot, and you might not be ready to. And I understand.
But I pray that one day you will learn how to forgive me.”

“Everything’s gonna be okay,” I assured her with a hug.

She shook her head. “No it’s not. Everything’s not gonna be
okay. We’re flat broke, Karen. We don’t have any money. It’s all gone. Your
Daddy went and maxed out all of his credit and my credit, too.”

“Oh goodness. Mama, I’m so sorry.”

“Do you know what he did yesterday? Yesterday he went to the
bank and took out everything. My whole paycheck that I just got that we needed
to pay bills and buy groceries. He took it all out. Left us with a zero
balance, and went to that damn race track…”